Death spiral • Hacker News Board

Re: Death spiral

#31

Post by rjurney » Wed, Jul 22, 2009, 10:17 PM UTC

brk wrote: post #30

rjurney wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its actually impossible to make a good point on the internet without giving someone, somewhere the ability to call it an over generalization. It turns out though, that pointing out exceptions to generalizations is the lamest comment one can make on the internet, because of course, any statement to a wide audience will have exceptions that someone, somewhere on the internet can point out. Pointing out over generalizat…

Its actually impossible to make a good point on the internet without giving someone, somewhere the ability to call it an over generalization. No, it's really not. The Internet gives you the ability to publish as much data and detail as you choose. It allows you to target a selected audience and provide information and discussion topics that relate to a specific audience that would not have been cost effective to reac…

Every writer wants to reach more than 5 people in the tiniest sub-segment of any given topic of interest, which is about where you're at if you write generalization-free.

Which is to say that what you wrote is a terrible generalization! Its not always true - its only true for writers that are writing for groups of people numbering less than five.

Re: Death spiral

#32

Post by qu1j0t3 » Wed, Jul 22, 2009, 10:25 PM UTC

rjurney wrote: post #31

brk wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its actually impossible to make a good point on the internet without giving someone, somewhere the ability to call it an over generalization. No, it's really not. The Internet gives you the ability to publish as much data and detail as you choose. It allows you to target a selected audience and provide information and discussion topics that relate to a specific audience that would not have been cost effective to reac…

Every writer wants to reach more than 5 people in the tiniest sub-segment of any given topic of interest, which is about where you're at if you write generalization-free. Which is to say that what you wrote is a terrible generalization! Its not always true - its only true for writers that are writing for groups of people numbering less than five.

My own writing has adapted to this. I now ONLY make brief generalisations, because I've learned that argument or reasoning or evidence is a waste of effort. People either already agree with you, or as far as they're concerned, you're wrong and always will be wrong. And furthermore you're a fat stupid troll and so is your momma.

Re: Death spiral

#33

Post by jlees » Wed, Jul 22, 2009, 10:29 PM UTC

SamAtt wrote: post #20

jlees wrote: post #10

I wonder what prompted this.

Given it's basically one paragraph of advice stretched over 5 I'd guess it had something to do with the need to write something every day. When you create artificial deadlines like that for yourself (as he does) I'd imagine most of your writing is done more out of obligation than inspiration.

Oh, I know that latter well enough. I used to blog for AOL (Weblogs Inc), and it's the reason I left.

Re: Death spiral

#34

Post by lsb » Wed, Jul 22, 2009, 11:36 PM UTC

TrevorJ wrote: post #18

jbrun wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Evolution anyone? Who has heard of an organism adapting to change by cutting their limbs off? People like stability. In fact, we are predisposed (through evolution) to think that the world is inherently stable. They think that if something has been working for 10, 20, 30 years there is no reason that it should not keep working; thus, a downturn in their business is a temporary abnormality that will correct itself. So…

"Who has heard of an organism adapting to change by cutting their limbs off?" Like this? http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/03/090325170604.ht...

Also, grasses, which try to maintain a constant shoot-to-root ratio; if they get cut down or eaten, they drop some of their root.

Re: Death spiral

#35

Post by kragen » Thu, Jul 23, 2009, 12:47 PM UTC

rjurney wrote: post #28

brk wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So I think that Godin makes a huge overgeneralization You have basically just summed up Seth's entire blogging history.

Its actually impossible to make a good point on the internet without giving someone, somewhere the ability to call it an over generalization. It turns out though, that pointing out exceptions to generalizations is the lamest comment one can make on the internet, because of course, any statement to a wide audience will have exceptions that someone, somewhere on the internet can point out. Pointing out over generalizat…

The question isn't whether someone has the ability to call his point an overgeneralization (i.e. wrong, misleading, actively harmful, worse than useless); the question is whether it actually is or not. When faced with overgeneralizations, the most useful thing you can possibly do is to point out examples where those generalizations don't hold:

- It helps you by preventing you from accepting the false statement — you learn where it's true and where it's false.

- It helps other readers by preventing them from accepting the false statement, and in blatant cases, pointing out that the person who's writing is just trying to get traffic to their blog rather than writing something of value.

- It helps more careful writers by diminishing the reputations of the ones who are just bullshitting, which counters the audience-getting effect of boldly stating bullshit to some extent.

It's probably true that you can get traffic to your blog by making bold generalizations without any concern for whether they are true or not. The question is, what can we do to fix that, so as to reduce the temptation to jettison intellectual honesty in the quest for attention?

Re: Death spiral

#36

Post by Tangurena » Thu, Jul 23, 2009, 2:13 PM UTC

poiuytrrew wrote: post #23

silentOpen wrote: post #15

This also occurs with semi-public services (at least in the US). For example, the MBTA ("T") in Boston serves largely those without cars: college students, tourists, people with low income. Unfortunately, due to extreme mismanagement, the T regularly decides to cut services and increase fares... and things just get worse from there. If you're a private business, you have to find a way to escape the spiral. If you're…

Pubic transport is one of the prime examples of this. We need to save money: OK we will cut routes, put up fares, reduce number of trains/buses. So there are now fewer people wanting to use the more expensive overcrowded unreliable service, OK we will have to make more cuts. Eventualy you aren't actually running any trains but are still paying for all the fixed cost infrastructure.

Here in Denver, the public transportation is heavily subsidized by sales taxes. Depending on whose statistics you listen to, 20-40% of the cost of running RTD comes from farebox revenue (the rest comes from mostly a sales tax levy and some from federal grants). City route buses get about 4mpg, and they use so much fuel that every 1/10 of a cent rise in diesel comes out to $100,000 annually.

The worst waste is required by ADA. AccessiRide (those short buses for the severly handicapped) cost RTD about $45 per trip.

Re: Death spiral

#37

Post by poiuytrrew » Thu, Jul 23, 2009, 9:14 PM UTC

Tangurena wrote: post #36

poiuytrrew wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pubic transport is one of the prime examples of this. We need to save money: OK we will cut routes, put up fares, reduce number of trains/buses. So there are now fewer people wanting to use the more expensive overcrowded unreliable service, OK we will have to make more cuts. Eventualy you aren't actually running any trains but are still paying for all the fixed cost infrastructure.

Here in Denver, the public transportation is heavily subsidized by sales taxes. Depending on whose statistics you listen to, 20-40% of the cost of running RTD comes from farebox revenue (the rest comes from mostly a sales tax levy and some from federal grants). City route buses get about 4mpg, and they use so much fuel that every 1/10 of a cent rise in diesel comes out to $100,000 annually. The worst waste is require…

Subsidizing public transport isn't necessarily bad - if there were no buses how much sales tax would it cost to build enough bridges/freeways/parking-lots etc so that everybody could drive into downtown. What about in Manhattan?

The point was that it is one of those areas were making cuts to save money gets counter productive very fast.